


Eyes Off You

by arcadevia



Series: Comfort Fics [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Cuddling & Snuggling, Drinking, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Insecure Lance (Voltron), Kissing, Lance Has Curly Hair, Lifeguard Lance (Voltron), M/M, Making Out, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Minor Allura/Romelle (Voltron), Piercings, Pining Keith (Voltron), Protective Keith (Voltron), Recreational Drug Use, Shotgunning, Tattoos, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and brown eyes hehe, but it’s 3+1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25464742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadevia/pseuds/arcadevia
Summary: “I like it,” Keith blurts, practically signing off the measurements of his coffin with how straightforward that feedback is.Lance’s head swiftly tips downward to finally look at Keith. His face is the shell of a reaction, toeing between something wild and something passive. A few locks of hair swing down and hang loose along the edge of his forehead, kind of like Allura’s doll-like ringlets that dance around with every expressive motion she makes. The overhead light is barely obscured from Keith’s view by his friend’s towering figure, and it’s almost like Lance is simultaneously both something nostalgic and completely foreign.“You do?” Lance asks with a genuine curious lilt. His knuckles shift anxiously against the seams of the shorts’ pockets.“Yeah.”Keith can’t take his eyes off Lance.Or: 3 times Keith was struck dumb by Lance’s beauty and 1 time he didn’t just stare.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Comfort Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065521
Comments: 43
Kudos: 497
Collections: Just some pretty nice fics





	Eyes Off You

**Author's Note:**

> I realized toward the end of this that I’d been projecting my manic symptoms on Lance so in headcanon he’s bipolar, I just never confirmed cause it’s not too relevant lol
> 
> Here’s the short [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/pd6y8clt8tszpdwy52imgq728/playlist/1wDZ0aNZCKde1FNOqCCtpF?si=ILcVQ88ZQFOZ2sXwqyuzfg) for this fic :)

It’s Allura’s fault.

“When she showered at my place—“

“She _showered_ at _your_ place?” Keith interrupts with a poorly masked, jealousy-struck shrill in the hair care aisle. His volume isn’t much of a problem anyway, as passersby navigate around the store with grocery carts that rattled like a two year old holding a macarena.

Lance leans against their— _his_ own cart, hooking his heel onto the thin metal bar between the back squeaky wheels and leveling Keith with a dismissive huff. He’s tame now, which is utterly strange seeing that romance was on the list of things he absolutely _would_ ramble about given the chance, along with anything related to Ryan Reynolds. Strange because past-Lance would cry out with victory if he’d ever had the chance of throwing out a statement like that. But now? Now he’s just… chucking a bottle of leave-in conditioner between his hands with a look of consideration.

“I’m not into her like that anymore,” Lance mutters in a distant voice as his arched brows curl low whilst reading the bottle. As if ingredients in any kind of product matter as much as Lance, Mister _“The ladies adore me”_ , having one of said ladies at his house. Even without a vulgar implication, Keith’s surprised his friend isn’t a mess of drool and putty if what he claims stands true. There’s another part to this, surely, something like—

“Her shower broke and she had a date later that night so I just offered.” Lance sets the bottle back on the shelf, apparently deeming it unfit before moving on to a stout, brightly colored container.

“Oh,” Keith breathes out and now has half a mind to feel a fair amount of embarrassment at his small outburst. It mostly went unnoticed though, right? “Um, well are you upset about that or…”

Lance’s eyes flick over to him but the attention is still clearly directed at where his nose skims the crevice underneath the container’s lid, taking a small whiff before humming pleasantly. His lids flutter to half mast in sidetracked pleasure before perking up again. “Honestly, not really.” He does a once over at the small text on the container before tossing it in the cart. _His_ cart, because he and Keith don’t live together. But they sure do act like it.

“I still appreciate her but I think my imagination cut her out into something else,” Lance continues. “Now I get along with her the same way I do with Rachel and Veronica.”

“So like a sister of some sort,” Keith says bluntly for confirmation.

“Sure,” Lance shoots back as he slinks down the aisle. Keith avoids the blatant, casual display of his friend’s bottom from that, instead opting to not stroke out in the middle of Walmart and rather shuffle forward with only a twinge of guilt. It’s a nice ass, alright? Nothing else to it, his friend has actually _said_ the same to him once. Keith still lays awake rewinding that comment repeatedly until even his dreams are drenched in pining shambles. He has a feeling Lance hasn’t quite picked up on his very implicative trail leading to the very fact he is Gay as Fuck™.

“I’ve got you though.” Of course, because if it’s not something along the lines of _“Dude you’ve got a nice ass”_ , then it’s any other kind of comment that pains Keith from Lance’s crystal clear oblivion. The staff at their local coffee shop have unintentionally been led to believe he and Lance are an item, and Keith doesn’t have it in him to say otherwise, not when Lance’s classmate readily gives him a discount just by association. 

_Hypothetically_ dating has its perks: it’s the kind of relationship others see but the subjects don’t— or, well, at least one of them don’t. Because when Lance sees a window to pester Keith, he’ll launch right into it and nag him to wits end. Yet despite this, the moments in which his friend clings onto him like a koala are anything but a bother.

When Lance fizzles like a firecracker ready to burst in any inconvenient situation, Keith acts as a place to mellow out his fuse. And vice versa, if there’s one thing that’s been made clear, it’s that they _both_ have short tempers, and the colliding force isn’t something to reckon with.

So Keith spares some half-assed effort into huffing and puffing the first minute Lance’s flops over him on the couch. But really, there’s no resistance past what he feigns, and getting his cheeks squished, ears nipped, hair ruffled, shirts stolen (at least he suspects), or anything of the sort is actually a moment to look forward to thanks to his sickeningly sweet fondness for _Lance_ in particular. Boys are great, but Keith finds that aspect to be less relevant in comparison to other reasons his friend is so appealing.

He wonders when the next moment Lance will yank him into some form of an embrace will be, whether it’s in the store or a parking lot or on the couch again, where those honey brown eyes are alight with humor that Keith can only pretend to grumble at it for a brief while.

There’s a nudge against his hand and something slides along his pinky until hooking around and making that link it’s home. Lance’s hand is an especially rich shade of tan compared to Keith’s own skin tone, but it looks nice. _So nice_. His heart is squealing like the sound of helium escaping out the pinched mouth of a balloon.

Seems like the moment’s already happening.

But back to Allura, because the next part? Yeah, definitely her fault.

“So what’s with all the hair products?” Keith asks, half out of interest and the other half reaching for any conversation that strays from their linked-pinky affair. He walks steadily beside Lance from the connected guidance, like childishly clasping hands before crossing the street, yet he doesn’t have it in him to care too much.

“Well I was _trying_ to tell you before your little hissy fit,” Lance explains with a nudge and Keith already feels his cheeks heat. “Allura was like, absolutely baffled by my choice of shampoo and conditioner— I know, weird cause I’m already an obsessive lunatic when it comes to my looks, right?”

“Right,” Keith says, because there’s no repercussion if Lance is the one saying it about himself first. _At least he’s self aware_ , he considers.

Lance slides along the scuffed tile with ease, his eyes now back to plucking apart nearly every item on the surrounding shelves. Keith finds it quite endearing. “Apparently there’s stuff in them that can damage the structure or something. So she went on about _blah blah_ sulfate-silicon or something —it’s in my notes— said I oughtta change things up cause it might do me a favor.” His tone slips into prideful lilt and his thin lips crook a bit sheepishly. “There’s a chance my hair might actually be curly like it’d been when I was a kid, wouldn’t that be a shocker…”

It’s quite a theory, yet nonetheless believable. Though Keith has only seen a sprinkle of toddler-Lance photos, one in their group chat (which he totally didn’t save to his phone), the other pinned to the McClain fridge by a glittery frog magnet, worn to a dull shine over time. Both pictures showcase Lance with a flare of pink over the apples of his small, freckly cheeks and the tip of a scrunched nose. He’s likely back home in Cuba, naturally basking under the sunlight with an equally beaming smile, clinging around his mother’s neck like the mama’s boy he is— and of course, undoubtedly, sporting a heap of ringleted hair that’s turned a lighter shade of sandy brown from his outside adventures.

The pictures are an achingly sweet sight and Keith is convinced he’d be starstruck by Lance the same way he is now had they met so long ago. Along with that, he was almost foolishly drawn to meek little tears when a sense of deja-vu crept over him the first time he spotted that image in the kitchen. He can’t sum up any teasing for his friend’s _mama’s boy_ reputation because of course the same goes for himself, way back to curling up beside his mother on their rickety backyard hammock back in Florida. He has a history too, albeit spotty, it’s still there.

“But your hair looks good now,” his mouth betrays him, because although the concept is nothing but… well, a concept, Keith isn’t the biggest fan of change. Despite this, if there’s one thing he’s learned from this growing crush on Lance, it’s that change is a good look on his friend. Seriously, not even a bad haircut has managed to sweep his feelings out the window, and he was actually growing awfully fond of Lance’s fixation on hats in the meantime his hair grew out for another chance at redemption.

“Ugh,” Lance says while clutching his heart. “I love my fans. Truly Keith, I’m flattered.”

Keith rolls his eyes. Maybe he should step back from the easy praise, _that_ would be quite the change seeing as it’d only end up with Lance whining at his side. “I’m just saying it could go wrong.” He tries sounding realistic, but at this point he’s just stubborn.

Lance is pretty _now_ , with his hair in soft waves and both round ears peeking between those wispy tufts. Lance hates how big they are, has always had a habit of tugging the drawstring of his hood until the fabric is scrunched tight and all is concealed save for his pinched, annoyed face in reaction to his family (fondly) referring to him as _Dumbo_. Which, come on, is like one of the cutest Disney movies Keith has seen even though he may not verbally _admit_ it. And Lance’s ears look especially nice now with all the dazzling piercings they adorn; it’s a win-win.

So of course, predictably, Lance somehow reads into Keith’s embarrassingly endeared brain waves as they navigate through the store pinky-in-pinky, then tosses out his usual reasoning: “Can’t be worse than middle school…”

And that was the beginning of how Keith’s already escalating journey of pining had somehow become intertwined with the progressive curliness of his best friend’s hair.

  
  


“What’s taking them so long?” Keith grumbles as he reshuffles the Uno deck for the… _eighth_ time since settling on the floor in front of the coffee table. The cards flick expertly between his calculated hands before clapping together in a snappy sequence. It’s a talent he’d picked up as a strange high schooler, and even his flimsy tricks turned out to be quite awing to any unskilled person.

Over the years though, his card shuffling became somewhat of a nervous tic— amongst other basic illusional maneuvers. If he’s either too pent up or just plain out bored, he becomes some sort of walking magic show. It’s entertaining at least, to both him and Shiro, but the look of delight on _Lance’s_ face after a simple trick remains unmatched to any other amused onlooker he’s encountered. Keith could make a cheap and crumpled fake rose seem to appear from thin air and Lance acts like he may as well have turned his sneakers to gold. Then, inevitably, he’s told to do it again and again to the point where his hands begin to cramp, yet Lance’s excitement hasn’t tamped down in the slightest. Nevertheless, a magician never reveals his secrets.

 _Not when he’s got Lance’s attention,_ Keith thinks to himself— smug, yet it’s still a bit pathetic. _Not when he’s the reason for that smile._

“Calm down, I’m sure your boyfriend just stopped for iced coffee or something,” Pidge drones flippantly from where they lounge on a nearby couch.

Keith’s fingers twitch from the sudden spotlight that leaves him feeling bare and exposed, like the cards that clumsily spew from his hands and scatter across the floor and coffee table, face up with their identities revealed. He scowls, fending off a growing blush while swiping the cards back into his possession. Pidge chuckles behind a loose smile but he barely hears it, only knows it happened by the way their bangs flutter. Their knowingness is quiet and stops at that, but Keith’s skin still crawls uncomfortably at the idea of what may be said behind closed doors— to Lance. Do they make the same jokes on the other end? Do they reserve them just for the sake of making Keith squirm? Do they—

“ _¡Buenas noches!_ ” He hears an unmistakable voice bellow from the kitchen of Pidge and Hunk’s apartment. “The king has arrived! As I’m sure everyone missed me so dearly.” Keith’s pulse quivers a little, unable to mask it’s surefire agreement of _yes_ , he missed Lance for a whole fifteen minutes, and all the ones since their last encounter. “ _La princesa_ is right outside but she’s texting her little girlfriend.”

“Just say _the princess_ ,” Pidge shoots out while their eyes stay glued to their phone.

Keith hears a chorus of crinkling grow louder, likely from plastic bags knocking together in Lance’s grip while his footsteps thump across the floor and rival Keith’s schoolgirl heart beating like a mini earthquake. He glances over, spots Lance’s feet clad in his notoriously vibrant loteria card patterned socks as they halt at the end of the other couch, and rolls his eyes a little too fondly.

“You know, as someone with immigrant parents who worked hard to get here, I think I have a right to include a little spice in my sentences, _pu_ —“

Keith’s eyes blow wide the moment he cranes his head back to see Lance properly, from the socks, to gangly tan legs, to standard black shorts, to a shirt he doesn’t understand the punchline to, to… to _this_.

“ _Whoa!_ ” Pidge cries out as an echo of Keith’s short circuited reaction. He thinks he might die, or at least have a stroke. “Your hair is different!”

 _Different_ doesn’t explain the air being punched from his lungs like a half-deflated pool toy. _Different_ doesn’t explain his saucer-eyes practically brimming with silent adoration at the sight. _Different_ does not explain how utterly choked up he feels just because Lance’s hair is _actually_ curly.

It’s not exactly the same as his once youthful little pen springs of sandy hair, sure, but it’s enough for Keith to second guess how long it’s actually been since seeing him. Only a week, right? Maybe a little over… Their Walmart trip was the day before finals, and then there was him visiting Shiro, and then— yeah, only about a week and a half.

So Lance had that time frame to swap around his hair routine, bring back structure —or whatever— to a pattern he suspected was already long gone, and finally show up for a game of Uno whilst sporting loose, dark spirals of shiny brown hair. As if Keith wasn’t already floundering through fantasies of puppy love when it came to how unmistakably good his friend already looked before…

Lance’s gaze darts around, his brown eyes dark in the living room’s low light and seemingly wary as he shifts from one wobbly leg to another. He doesn’t meet Keith’s stare.

“Uh, yeah I just got some different stuff for my hair.” He lifts a hand up to tuck a delicate strand back with a gentle brush, and the studs along the shell of his ear glint from his slight movement. “And… yeah, this is how it turned out I guess.” His hand swings back down and burrows itself in the pocket of his shorts. It’s a habit Keith recognizes, one that’s reserved for Lance’s more self conscious moments. Does he not think he looks good?

“I like it,” Keith blurts, practically signing off the measurements of his coffin with how straightforward that feedback is. At least it’s not _“I_ really _like it”_ or _“I wanna touch it”_ or _“I wanna run my fingers through it even though that would probably mess it up. I don’t care, you’re so fucking attractive.”_

Lance’s head swiftly tips downward to finally look at Keith. His face is the shell of a reaction, toeing between something wild and something passive. A few locks of hair swing down and hang loose along the edge of his forehead, kind of like Allura’s doll-like ringlets that dance around with every expressive motion she makes. The overhead light is barely obscured from Keith’s view by his friend’s towering figure, and it’s almost like Lance is simultaneously both something nostalgic and completely foreign.

“You do?” Lance asks with a genuine curious lilt. His knuckles shift anxiously against the seams of the shorts’ pockets.

Keith has to refrain from sighing. “Yeah,” he croaks out. “It looks good.” He digs his fingertips into the edges of the deck in his hands and prays his friendly expression is just that and nothing more.

The moment is broken. Lance breathes out with a smile and sets his bags down on the coffee table the same moment Pidge mutters _“Gay”_. Allura and Hunk come inside, bearing the rest of the groceries for their hangout, and it’s enough to jumpstart the night while they wait for Shiro and Adam to arrive after their date.

Keith can’t take his eyes off Lance.

He’s no stranger to a good hair routine, but the powers of whatever products Lance tossed in the shopping cart that one day were clearly underestimated. It’s not like Lance is a completely different person, if anything he seems more like himself with this look, and perhaps that’s why Keith can’t shake away that initial amazement. It’s like his eyes align with Lance the way a compass points north: loyally and without fail.

Each time Lance catches him, he apparently expects there to be a reason besides blatant, dumbfounded attraction beneath it all.

It started with a curious glance Keith’s way. Lance was halfway through opening a pack of gum when he looked over at Keith, shuffling the Uno deck in eight different ways to both alleviate his internal crisis and make it worse since his eyes continuously betrayed him anyway. Lance flicked his wrist out, offering a wrapped piece of gum pinched in the slot between his index and middle finger, his thin brows were peaked with question and eyes warm enough to make Keith melt like wax from a flame. He took up the unspoken offer, as graciously as manageable when his hands trembled as if he had no gloves for the onslaughts of winter winds. It’s May. Ugh, he needs to keep it together.

He doesn’t, in fact, keep it together.

Before he could even think of dealing out the cards, Lance immediately plops down at his side and insists he perform a trick. _“Whatever you got,”_ he’d said. And Keith, remembering how a simple illusion draws a reaction out of his friend as if he were _literally_ bending the elements, followed through with a basic act he’d learned in his sweltering hot bedroom back in Florida. No motive was stirring up in his adolescent mind at the time, aside from defeating an all-encompassing cloud of boredom, and now he’s using this lesson learned for the sake of impressing a boy. So what? He was gay then and he’s gay now, it was inevitable.

“Is this your card?” Keith says after performing a tame little frenzy of deception. It’s really just the art of flaunting, to claim there’s more to an act while realistically, he’s just retracing his steps. It’s a blue four, just the one that Lance plucked from his over-shuffled deck because he left a small pen marking in the corner.

Lance is clearly trying to stifle his gasp, but Keith notices that telltale jolt, where his friend’s body seems to lock up a little and his lips hang in a loose gape— adorably childlike.

“Screw off,” Lance says, his mouth curling into an incredulous smile. “You cheated.”

“I didn’t,” Keith throws back, because he knows his lines by now given this is probably the tenth time he’s delivered them. And then Lance will say—

“Okay do it again, but—“

“But _slowly?_ ” he finishes with a smirk and swipes the blue four back into the deck for his umpteenth shuffle. Although it’s not for the sake of another trick, he’s just feeling real giddy again when Lance is wearing that thrilled, gold-sneakers face. “You know I won’t do that,” he chuckles, then begins dealing out the cards once Allura and Hunk seat themselves on the other side.

Lance grumbles like usual and snatches up his own little pile, murmuring his classic line: _“One day I’ll have you all figured out, Kogane”_. Which is funny, because understanding Keith is gay is probably easier than that of a simple card trick, yet the boy knows of neither. Keith is accidentally two steps ahead in whatever charade this is, nonetheless it’s amusing.

Two rounds into Uno and Lance is reigning superior to the rest of the group. Pidge has even taken to sliding their phone underneath the glass coffee table just for a peek at the hand Lance was dealt, but even with their sneaky antics (which only lasted for a few minutes), they all ultimately remained defeated. Sure, Keith is decent at simple illusion, but when it comes to a game held by strategy in one hand and chance in the other, he always finds himself groaning for the umpteenth time at Lance’s inevitable—

“Uno!” he chirps, and Keith really shouldn’t be surprised about it.

“When’s Shiro and Adam coming back? You need to be dethroned already, dude,” Hunk grumbles before tossing out a yellow two. It doesn’t even land on the deck but they’re all too lousy to fix it anyway. “I don’t even care about myself winning, everyone just attack Lance.”

“Aww c’mon man! I’m the Uno _king_ alright,” Lance says with a smirk. A sliver of pearly whites peek between his curved mouth and Keith, just like before, takes an extra moment just to assess himself.

Shiro once said the way he looks at Lance is like a once-sad puppy finally finding an owner, to which Keith immediately called bullshit. A couple days later his phone screen brightened from a notification, and the next moment he was met with a picture of “puppy Keith” leveling an awfully yearning gaze at a nearby oblivious Lance, leaned over Hunk’s kitchen counter while skimming through one of the stray cookbooks their friend leaves sitting around.

 _That doesn’t count_ , he’d thought to himself. He whipped his head in Shiro’s direction just to send him a brief juvenile sneer, his nose scrunched and eyes hot from a madness only a sibling can stir up.

It doesn’t count because Lance just… looked really good, alright? His lashes aren’t quite long but they’re dark and thick and still frame those wonderfully glazed-over brown eyes that flickered across that cupcake recipe with ease. The knuckle of his thumb was slotted between loose thin lips, where it’s crooked joint rested against his teeth as he pondered about god knows what, honestly. He’s just really _pretty_ and _handsome_ and—

Lance catches him staring. It’s the third time now, and it seems Lance reigns superior in locking onto Keith at passive-yet-inconvenient moments as much as he does in Uno.

He glances at Keith’s hand of cards, fanned out and practically on display from his impromptu trip down memory lane. And by memory lane, he means last week. Sad puppy Keith was proven last week and he’s _still_ rightfully bitter about it.

Lance looks at him expectantly before nodding with a pointed expression. The movement jostles his loose wavy-curls where they splay across the top of his forehead and twist into little crescent shaped strands just in front of his ears. His hair shines with a renewed healthy gloss, and the line of studs along his ears on either side twinkle in the living room’s dull light. The sight makes Keith wonder what Lance would look like with other accessories, like one of those sparkly hair pins he sees in the window of that preteen beauty store that’s otherwise an unwelcome assault to the eyes. Or maybe a headband with rhinestones, like the one Lance had randomly gifted him as a joke a few months ago, yet he’d gone on to use it more often than either of them really expected. Or maybe—

“I’m texting Shiro right now,” Hunk announces through a mutter.

“Can you ask him to bring food back while he and Adam are headed over?” Pidge asks.

Allura’s nose scrunches at that and she momentarily abandons the constant scowling at her own cards in favor of piping in— “Don’t we already have food though?”

Soon enough, his friends’ voices become a blubbering mess while Lance leans further into his space for the sake of shamelessly analyzing the cards he holds. “Whaddya got?” he asks in a low breath that sends the scent of sweet candied watermelon straight to Keith’s nose from such close proximity. Close enough for Lance to hover right beside his cheek with an arm slung over the couch cushions behind them. Close enough for Keith’s breathing to turn stilted and leave his body in a brief panic for almost choking on his own gum. He wills it to remain wedged between his shut teeth and a tense jaw, for the sake of not risking a gross slimy glob of pink to land on Lance’s hand, which flicks through the cards one by one as if they were his own.

“This,” Keith can only let out, and he twists his wrist in Lance’s favor. Why is he doing this? He’s unsure, but it’s got something to do with being what Shiro deemed as a pining little puppy.

He has two playable cards: a red seven, playable by color, and a blue three, playable by number.

With one peek, he confirms Lance has a blue four, the one he’d marked before. Which means he can either give in to a gateway role that results in Lance’s victory for the third time, or he can crush those chances and likely break the continuous streak…

Going by the way his friend is currently wielding the power of every pity-provoking sight to exist and projecting it through wide, glossy brown eyes that bore into the depths of Keith’s weak, weak soul: Lance is also aware of the odds.

“Keith,” Lance pleads quietly as the rest of the group’s squabbling is beginning to taper down. “I’ll do anything.”

Keith feels a familiar pressure against his hand that’s been resting in his lap, void of any cards. It nudges his pinky, wriggles along the edge until the finger is separated from the rest and it clings to Lance’s instead. Loyal, grounded. “Anything?”

“Okay well not, like, _anything_ , but you know—“

Keith sets the cards in his lap, plucks out the red seven and smacks it onto the table.

And Lance flips his shit, but _quietly_.

Because you see, according to _their_ version of the game, any sevens call for immediate silence amongst the players. If one were to talk during such, they pick up the same amount of cards as the number of words spoken.

So while everyone’s mouths snap shut at Keith’s resounding _slam_ on the coffee table, Lance scrambles onto his knees and draws Keith into a headlock. Until the next seven, all is quiet save for his friend’s tame growls and his own struggling, half-chuckle half-grunts.

“ _Eurgh_.” Lance hesitates on imbalanced, wobbly knees, and the secure headlock is broken by Keith’s insistent grip. Their friends only glance over with bland amusement, then Allura wordlessly slides an extra card next to Lance’s abandoned, unplayable one for the round to move along.

Keith finally manages to lock an arm around Lance’s side, his palm sliding across the thin fabric of the latter’s shirt and over undulating curves of back muscle that he’s definitely gonna have trouble stamping out of his mind later on. He takes hold around the other’s torso with both arms and the position leaves Lance squirming in his strong hold like an antsy cat, eager for a taste of freedom yet ultimately stuck getting a bath or its nails clipped.

Lance’s nails are blunt though, and in all honesty they’re both well aware he could escape if he really wanted to. So Keith spares himself some pleasure at the idea that _perhaps_ getting handsy like this is more welcomed than not. After all, Lance is the one linking pinkies like Keith is an elementary school friend with a knack for unbreakable promises.

His chin tickles from Lance’s tousled ringlets in the place his head rests against Keith’s chest. There’s the undeniable urge to touch them, card his fingers through the roots and curl them the way he cares for Kosmo when the pup is anxious for affection. Instead he loosens his arms to something more manageable, uncrosses his legs to retrieve the cards that’d briefly suffocated underneath from Lance’s assault, then frames his body around his friend’s— almost like a goddamn _cradle_.

And is he ashamed? Absolutely not, yet his cheeks flare from the blatant reminder that their friends accompany this little show of friendship, featuring homoromantic undertones that turn Keith into a borderline insomniac from how much overthinking it’s cost. Is he the oblivious one? Is Lance also somehow not as straight as the street lamps he clumsily knocks into? Or is this just another dig at their ongoing _bromance…_

God knows. Keith hands Lance a green two and it’s passed on to the scattered pile on the coffee table.

The round drones on for longer than Keith expected. Every so often, Lance’s hand would creep up and switch cards with him, until at one point they’d screwed it altogether and just became a team. A shitty one, considering they’ve remained at five cards for several rotations.

Another seven had been placed down earlier too, breaking the talking taboo, but Lance’s calmness remained all the same before Keith had begun to notice his friend was actually starting to doze off.

Allura is shameless with her obvious grin at their position, and her smile is curved with more friendliness than Pidge’s smirk and Hunk’s thoroughly amused stare.

“Look at this kid dozin’ off here,” Pidge huffs. “Lancey taking a nap mid-play date, huh?” They chuckle and place down their card.

Keith has started flashing his card to everyone before haphazardly flicking it onto the table. Lance’s arms are as limp as wet noodles by now anyway, and the most he does is lazily twiddle with Keith’s fingertips or check the time on his phone.

He wonders —passively, like a bird swooping across his line of sight— if this is the kind of mundane affection that would come with dating Lance. And before his brain launches that idea away in the form of a defensive cannonball, he admits with a sureness that shakes him to his core: he _really_ wouldn’t mind that.

“Shuddup, cheese-brain,” Lance murmurs before slinking further into Keith under a gentle sigh. The pressure’s alright. Lance is warm and smells nice and traces the family tattoo along Keith’s arm over a valley of goosebumps. “Someone’s jealous of my rent-free pillow.”

“Righhhht,” Pidge drags out. “More like your rent-free _boyfriend_.”

Keith’s card flicks straight into their face and leaves them sputtering it away the same moment Lance merely huffs. “Jealousy’s an ugly look on you, Pidgeon. So’s the shoes.”

“Keith is homosexual and your obsession with shoes is actually ridiculous but alright.”

Keith’s heart blunders in shock, the kind that skyrockets his pulse in every part of his body that blood flows. His shoulders tense and the base of his throat tightens from the sudden comment that hurdles him under the bus. Lance is going to pull away. He’s going to scramble around of his pathetic, indulgent arms and look at him alarmed and bewildered under the impression he’s being used to an advantage, and then he’ll say—

“Okay, and what about it?” Lance shoots out. He’s still in Keith’s hold, his expression a paradox to Keith’s mind from the way he remains turned away. “Still seems a little sus, huh Keith?” He pats the thigh enclosing him and crooks his head back for a response.

“I don’t even know what to say right now.” It’s the truth. Is Lance not surprised he’s gay? Had he already known?

And just like that, the moment is over. Hunk announces that Shiro and Adam are arriving soon with Canes, much to Pidge’s delight, while Lance slugs back to the dazed state where his antics turn cloudy from languor.

And Keith couldn’t help it, truthfully, when he reached a hand up just to tug a looped tendril of Lance’s hair just to watch it spring back into place. Soon enough, he’s picked the ends of several different strands while Lance lazily roves a thumb over Keith’s wrist, right at the base of his swirling inked sleeve. His friend quietly preens under the attention, curling from the sensation of Keith’s fingertips that finally drive along his scalp and leave the boy sighing in their wake.

The game is abandoned for Keith’s ministrations and everyone else’s distraction for food and whatever gossip or memes happen to circulate their attention. Lance turns slack in his hold and falls asleep.

“Shiro’s gonna love this,” Hunk says as he snaps a picture, much to Keith’s dismay.

Allura coos at the sight and mutters an obvious “Send that to me.”

“Shiro’s not gonna _see_ this,” Keith says with as much strictness as he can muster at a low volume for Lance’s sake.

His timing is proven as ill placed when there’s a telltale jostling of the front door before the handle finally gives, and two sets of footsteps come thumping down the hallway. Hunk levels Keith with an _“Oh really?”_ look while Keith instinctually holds tighter to Lance like a toddler with a teddy bear. It completely contradicts his frantic urge to bolt off the scene, but then that would frighten Lance and his neck wouldn’t be warm where the latter’s head rests, or he wouldn’t smell that nice leave-in conditioner that radiates the scent of things like coconut and salt. So screw all, let him have his teddy bear.

“They gave us extra fries because they were gonna close soon so—“ Shiro halts his blabbering once he steps behind the couch, his stare that glazes across the group stops at Keith’s current… _situation_ , and Keith recognizes the trademark stumped-to-smug expression change. “Well well _well_ ,” he says as he sets the bags onto the floor next to him and crosses his arms. His bomber jacket rises from the movement and it puffs out his chest like a school bully— one that Keith would totally punch right now if he wasn’t already occupied. He settles for scowling. “Did I just walk into an alternate universe?”

“Dick.”

 _“Heh heh heh,”_ Shiro’s delighted little cackle huffs past his crooked, villainous smile. The kind that ends with Keith throwing cereal boxes at him in the grocery store, or a good wrestle resulting in his teeth aching because he’d bit his brother’s prosthetic instead of his real arm. “Picture time!”

It takes some effort not to betray himself and choke out a laugh at how hilariously Shiro positions his phone, holding it up landscape with one hand while his index finger hovers over the screen. He looks utterly distraught, like a forty year-old still coming to understand the functions of a device. Keith flips off the camera in a complete oxymoron to the relentless gymnastics his heart and stomach are doing.

Keith avoids the stretch of smug silence in the following moment that Shiro pockets his phone, while it takes a bit longer than expected for Adam to shake out of his distant smile from behind before hefting the bags to the kitchen with an “Alright, food time! Wake up sleeping beauty if he doesn’t wanna miss out on extra fries.”

And sleeping beauty he is, even when the boy’s curly hair sticks up in different directions like loose springs in a packed machine. Even with the faint line of drooling running at the corner of his lip, which Lance only registers after croaking “What time is it?” once Keith nudges him awake. Lance hurriedly wipes at his mouth and his brown eyes widen a fraction from a tinge of frantic embarrassment. “Sor—“

“It’s fine,” Keith admits. He hadn’t even noticed.

He never notices when it comes to Lance. There’s better parts of his friend’s company on his mind.

“Hm. In that case you should carry me to the kitchen,” Lance says. His sleepiness makes it sound sweeter than the mischievous remark he must’ve aimed for, like a little more honey in those toasted peanut butter sandwiches Hunk makes for everyone to snack on.

So he does— carry Lance, that is. They stand together after Keith sighs out “Alright…” without much reluctance. It’s enough for Lance to eagerly hop up and latch around his torso the way Sylvio has done with no prior warning at the family reunions Keith has shown up to— both intentionally and unprompted. 

When Keith enters the kitchen sporting his oversized backpack of a friend, the return of that swooping thought is unavoidable after Pidge mutters “I’m getting flashbacks of Shiro and Adam”, and Hunk says “Ahh, the newlyweds have arrived.”

He wouldn’t mind it.

  
  


_“If you like piña coladas,_

_Getting caught in the rain…”_

Keith scoops ice into a standard measuring cup, skipping any meticulous double-check at the amount he’s collected. He’s just now got some semblance of recovery from this shift after the afternoon rush starts to dwindle. As of now, there’s less beach goers that stampede into the smoothie shop with stringy wet hair and sandals that track sand across the floor and obnoxiously crunch with every step. Now it’s the well-timed regulars or slumped employees from nearby souvenir shops— and they look as ridden as Keith figures he himself might be. He’s not exactly sure, the most reflection he can find is distorted in the curved metal base of Jamba Juice’s blender, or the countertops mostly smeared from discarded fruits and glove tracks in the midst of a rushed order.

_“—like making love at midnight,_

_In the dunes on the cape…”_

The overhead speakers thump on through the shop’s upbeat playlist of summer _“bops”_ , as Nyma refers to them. It’s the third time around he’s heard this song in the past couple of hours, but he doesn’t have it in him to complain when he’d been subjected to Ariana Grande for pretty much all the remaining time.

Lance would be having the time of his life here— well, _mostly_. This type of music takes up nearly half his car tunes, the rest filled with just as lively 80s songs that Keith’s memorized the lyrics to thanks to his friend passionately belting them out every time they drive together.

But his singing voice is nice— _god_ , it actually is. It makes it all the more difficult for Keith to lamely look onward with a cheek in his hand —the picture of a person annoyed to no end— when in reality he’s too busy biting back a smile and ultimately exposing himself after chancing a look at Lance, who’s got his nose cutely scrunched while singing his heart out into an empty Sprite bottle. So of course, Keith would assume the boy would have a swell time putting on such a performance for customers here.

Except Lance has picked up his seasonal lifeguarding job down at the beach for a considerably even _greater_ time, (not that Jamba is so great to begin with), going by the way he’s visited Keith on break in the past with a toothy grin and freckles sprayed along his reddened shoulders— a sight that’s reminiscent of that worn photo on the fridge.

So Keith can say he’s rightfully looking forward to that first visit of the summer, where Lance usually sweeps the door open with a grand push and struts inside like it’s a spotlight in Hollywood and not just a mundane shop on the outskirts of San Diego.

It’s 4 o’clock now, around the time Lance’s shift should end on Thursdays, (yes he’s memorized that now), so every passing minute Keith is glancing through their glass doors at the parking lot beyond. Surely it must be _baking_ outside, from the way customers sigh with relief under the drooping weight of summer heat and sweaty chests that have Keith thanking god for at least having air conditioning while enduring shitty customers. He’d like to think the attitude bites them in the ass, there’s no denying the smirk on his face when he spots them flinching back from their searing hot car handles after haughtily strutting back outside.

And yet the minutes drone on, sans “Hollywood star” Lance, and Keith ends up dropping his continuous back and forth between the drinks and the door. He must’ve been doing it a concerning amount of times going by how a couple customers had taken to curiously glancing out the windows too.

It’s his fourth smoothie he’s made since four o’clock when the overhead bell gives its trademark little jingle and Keith shoots out a half-assed “Welcome to Jamba.”

“Well don’t sound _too_ excited to see me,” Lance responds. About time… 

Keith turns around, his face pinched while struggling with a stubborn stack of medium cups that just won’t unstick. The tip of his finger wedges in a crease and _pulls_ while he looks up to Lance and—

the cups finally give and clatter to the ground.

Lance shuffles the rest of the way to the counter, flip-flops bringing back that dreadful sandy crunch, yet Keith doesn’t mind. Oh _no_ he doesn’t mind. Not when his friend is clad in only a pair of saturated red swim trunks and a lanyard dangerously spinning around his finger like a windmill in a breeze. He’s all… broad shoulders and toned muscle that _definitely_ glows better under the sun rather than the shop’s fluorescent lights. Keith curses himself for not doing an extra double, triple, _whatever_ take at the door before Lance came walking in like an actual star, (though he won’t verbally admit that). 

But it’s not just this that’s got Keith’s gayness in for a wild ride. No, it’s not the bronze skin or freckles that smatter across his cheeks and chest like the last chokes of spray paint from a cheap can. Or the sleeve of tattoos layered up his forearm in a mess of colorful punchlines and cartoon characters in the same manner his laptop is decorated with a similar mess. (His niece and nephew _absolutely_ had a heyday the moment their starstruck eyes landed on that arm). But it’s not Keith’s tipping point.

It’s the _hair_.

Lance looks like some sort of random model in an ad Keith would spend way too long staring at, so long he’d forget there’s an exit button altogether. Because that hair is a curly, stringed nest of sun-lightened honey and warm brown coils that dangle under the weight of runny salt water. It shags around his forehead like a set of bangs, something Lance would readily deny yet Keith wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t care there’s cups on the floor or Lance flinching with an _“Agh!”_ when the keys on his lanyard take a whip at his chin. Because Lance is just really, _really_ ho—

“So you gonna…” Lance trails as he rubs his chin absentmindedly before peering over the counter at the unpromptedly discarded cups. 

Keith comes to his senses. He shuts his dumbly loose jaw and jolts under a small wake up call when a cup knocks against his foot. “Uh—“ he coughs, “Yeah… Yeah.”

He picks up the clutter and takes a remaining one from the rack instead, loose from his stubborn pull. Lance shifts from one foot to another, tossing the lanyard up by its neck before snatching it up by the whistle.

“I can't be here for too long, I gotta help Thace with something,” Lance says before leaning over to prop his elbows on the counter with a sigh. His arms smear faint tracks of water along the countertop while the tips of his finger rap against the surface to the beat of the song. Keith busies himself with emptying the blender’s contents into that damned medium cup so as to stay occupied from Lance’s close proximity. His collarbones, the column of his throat, the slant of his jaw— all enticing, enough to lose coordination while pouring a drink and he can’t afford having that happen.

“ _Anywayyy_ ,” Lance continues without pause. “I wanted to show you Piplup!”

Keith sees motion from the corner of his eye, where Lance has excitedly stretched his arm out in display despite Keith clearly tackling another task— almost literally, this damn lid won’t go on. Nonetheless he glances over for his friend’s sake before the edge finally pops into place.

“Uhh I know. You sent me a picture on snapchat,” Keith says and makes his way back to the counter.

Lance scoffs, keeping his arm out anyway with unspoken expectancy for Keith to observe. He takes it— his arm, that is, and peers down at the chipper little pokémon near the crease of the elbow.

Lance had gotten his first tattoo on his eighteenth birthday, fresh into young adulthood where he finally had freedom from his mother’s restrictions despite her constant pestering over possible regret.

He didn’t regret it, or at least Keith is convinced of that. It lays just below the base of his wrist, a modest outline of baby Dumbo in the midst of soaring through the air with his floppy ears flared out and a giddy smile beneath his trunk. Lance decided to get it as more of an honor to his family bonds the nickname had stemmed from rather than his own insecurity, which he eventually, _mostly_ , grew out of. Keith still sees him twist the ringed piercings along the shells of his ears with a suppressed sort of disappointment. It’s unspoken now, apart from Keith’s _“I like the jewelry”_ s. He’s stumped for any other subtle compliment, but he’s trying, alright?

Anyway, that decorated patch of skin seemed to start something that eventually tempted Lance into an ongoing habit of plastering another character on his arm at least once every month. Twice if he stows away enough savings, or one month left mark-free if he’s not too careful. Keith and the others often hear _“What should the next one be?”_ every now and then, and Pidge finds it to be the best opportunity to throw out any kind of ridiculous option. Which occasionally results in an _“Aha!”_ moment, and next thing they know he’s doing the unbelievable. Or, well, believable at this point.

“Yeah but it’s not the same as real life,” Lance says while Keith roves his thumb so delicately over the skin that the stroke is barely registered. It’s a tad pink, still tender, but small enough to mostly heal in the couple weeks they’ve been apart. Lance had been packed with family plans the moment his relatives from out of state arrived, and Keith was helping Shiro and Adam move into their new home, all while grappling with the idea that he’ll be truly living on his own now. He’ll need to find a roommate sometime, god knows how he’d handle the rent alone… 

“It looks good,” Keith says while checking out the ice skating penguin for an extra couple seconds. “I like it.”

“Course you do.” The keys in Lance’s hand jingle when they shift in his grip. Lance takes apart the lanyard with a suspicious smile, the kind that casts his gaze low like only he can bear the weight of his plotting before Keith is snagged into another one of his ploys.

And snagged, he is. Lance tosses the lanyard around Keith’s neck in one smooth motion, right before Keith has the mind to try backing away. The keys and whistle are yanked slightly, Keith’s foot slips just a little to lose some balance but not enough to be too embarrassed. Because while he finds purchase on the lower side of the counter, Lance has got him hooked —and wrapped around his finger, practically— while flashing his trademark smirk. His eyes are dark. Dark like the strip of wet sand on the beach just before tides sweep through and send a cold shock to the ankles. He’s reeling Keith in.

“After all, you’re the one who chose it.”

Well, it’s not a lie. Keith _did_ make the suggestion, and the image seemed cute enough for Lance’s ongoing theme that’s got his niece and nephew cooing at every new addition. It’s cute, not _hot_. An ice skating penguin isn’t hot (if you’re normal), but… Lance is. And it’s really hard to ignore such a fact when his view is overtaken by _eyes_ and _lips_ and _skin—_ okay that sounds a little creepy, but the point is made.

He’s not sure what to say, really. There’s an order waiting to be served but his nose is brushing against Lance’s and those damp curls tickle his forehead and seriously, guess where his priorities lay with that.

_“And the feel of the ocean,_

_And the taste of champagne…”_

He licks his lips, then wonders if Lance’s taste like salt from his afternoon swim.

“Yeah,” he breathes out of the exertion that comes from maintaining every ounce of self control to refrain from _not_ diving forward into Lance, his _best friend_ , and capturing his lips in a shameless sloppy kiss that the surrounding customers would probably gawk in repulsion at. “I-I did.”

Lance’s stare drags on. Long enough for Keith’s arms to begin to ache under the slight strain of his own weight. He looks at Keith like there’s a certain response he’s expecting, despite already being given one— a sputtery one, but a response nonetheless.

In one drawn out breath, the moment is gone. Where Lance loosens his grip on the keys and straightens, Keith regains awareness of his surroundings and figures that his fantasy of making out in the middle of Jamba with his crush —and without repercussions— will have to remain as just that: a fantasy. He’s not sure what Lance sensed and whether it prompted this moment to deflate so easily, wildly unlike the fierceness the start of it took on. It’s like having his car windshield bashed in and made up for with a candy bar and a note saying _“Oopsie!”_. Or more accurately, it’s the same kind of whiplash he’s put through on the occasions where Lance comes over while Keith is asleep, and instead of nudging him awake like a _normal_ person, he finds himself jolting into consciousness while suspended a good foot in the air because apparently Lance just can’t help himself from diving onto the bed next to him like a complete _maniac_.

Keith folds his fingers in, nervously sliding pressure across each knuckle until they give in to a series of pops. It’s his natural method of grounding himself, so much so he doesn’t notice entirely until Lance visibly cringes at the sound. Only on rare occasions is Lance bored or curious enough for Keith to run his fingers through the same thing, and each time he yelps at a twinge of pain. _“Well you asked me to,”_ Keith would say, to which his friend would reply _“Yeah, but that still hurt!”_ and neither of them acknowledge Keith’s lingering ministrations to subside the ache in Lance’s fingers. Where his thumb indulgently slides along the other’s palm, there’s silence between them, or otherwise conversation veered away from where they connect.

“You’ll have to shoot more suggestions then,” Lance says before his mouth twitches and his nose scrunches at the one last _pop!_ from Keith. “And you’ll have to stop doing _that_.” He pointedly nods down to Keith’s wringing hands. At least it’s not his burning face being acknowledged, he may as well have been out there lifeguarding too.

Keith doesn’t have the chance to throw in his two cents over a _normal_ and not _gross_ habit. Lance has at _least_ ten piercings all over his ears, meaning a needle has been dug through his skin to make a hole for a piece of jewelry, and yet the sound of knuckles popping makes him squirm? Unbelievable.

“Hey Nyma,” Lance says, his friendly crooked smile planted right back on his face at the sight of Keith’s coworker sidling over with a smirk.

“Hi Lance,” she returns amusedly. “Nice earrings.”

Lance preens under the compliment, from the way his eyes crinkle to that little head tilt that surely makes Keith’s chest bubble with affection more than Nyma’s smug self ever will. He’s past his initial jealousy though, the only affair those two ever had was a classic starstruck Lance getting his wax pen stolen by her. Something about Nyma letting on that she was oh-so-curious about what it’s like to be high, which is hilarious considering her stoner ass can only get through shifts after taking a few hits in her car. And Keith definitely did _not_ join her a number of times on the hellish days… Because he’s a good role model of course…

“Thanks,” Lance chirps. “I like your hair.”

Nyma tosses the ends of her blonde braids over her shoulder, her bundled ponytail a contrast to her deep brown skin. Her mouth twists in valiant effort to ward off what must be a burst of laughter, but it puffs out anyway one she responds “I’m not giving you any more coupons.”

It’s in reference to their little incident, in which Keith made her make up to Lance with something other than an empty cart and a dead battery. Predictably Lance has been milking the deal ever since. It’s been nearly two months, now it’s a matter of Keith being a plain out sucker than all the times Lance couldn’t get smoked out on his own.

“Keith—“

“Nonono no, your boyfriend is off limits for that now,” Nyma says pointedly. “Our manager isn’t letting him near them anymore, he’s been too _generous_.”

Lance huffs. “Keithy is just generous to everyone now because I’m a good example, huh Keith?” he says, then takes hold of Keith’s hand over the counter. Their sleeves clash at the wrist, where the bold swirling ink of a family tattoo leads to Lance’s colorful, excessively stamped scrapbook-type mess. The contrast is so blatant, but now Keith can’t see any design compatible with the burst of flames from a dragon’s mouth on his wrist besides the _baby Dumbo_ on Lance’s.

“Uhhh—“

“Pfft, yeah that’s what you think.” Nyma shakes her head and slides the smoothie across the counter, Keith only just now realizes he’s forgotten about it. “I’ll take care of this, but no slacking.” With that, she saunters off across the shop after finding the waiting customer once the order is called out.

Lance turns back to Keith, lifting their hands to intertwine their fingers so Keith can have his fair share of fluttery feelings while baby Dumbo suffers from the searing flames of his dragon for it. Unfortunately, that’s the price to pay.

“So— Ah, _dammit_ ,” Lance says with a groan after glancing over Keith’s shoulder, presumably at the clock. “I’ve gotta run but I don’t wanna…” He kisses his teeth in consideration.

“That’s tough,” Keith mumbles. He’s more entertained by _looking_ than really _listening_. That sliver of red from the waistband of Lance’s swim trunks he can barely spot over the counter, the stretch of Lance’s exposed neck, the gleam of piercings, a pointed chin, curved nose, _freckles_ , lips… really really nice lips… nice lips that are getting closer and closer and wha—

“Hey loser,” Lance says, his breath tickling Keith’s mouth while his fingers brush over Keith’s neck. “I need my whistle.”

Whistle? Whistle like— _Oh_ , with the keys. Because Lance is a lifeguard and he needs that. And Keith is wearing the whistle and he should probably help and take off the lanyard to give Lance said whistle.

“Sorry,” he chokes out, then raises his spare hand beside Lance’s to fumble with the lanyard in a totally unhelpful, awkward little dance before finally ducking out of it.

“Damn, Keith, should you really be working here with that kind of coordination?” Lance laughs. “You’re a lost cause, dude.”

 _You have no idea_ , Keith can only think.

“Whatever,” he grumbles instead.

“‘ _Whatever_ ,’ he says,” Lance mocks him. “Don’t get all broody on me, I know those coupons weren’t for nothin’.”

“For you being an idiot, more like.”

“Alright you can shut your face now.” Their hands untwine and Lance swats his shoulder. Keith feels no sting, both in words and his shoulder. “I’m leaving now, don’t miss me _too_ much— oh! Also, Allura’s birthday party is this weekend so don’t forget or else you’re fake!” he adds as an afterthought with no regards to his volume while shuffling away. The rest of the shop may as well have become onlookers to their interaction now.

“Goodbye, Lance,” Keith says with hopefully enough exasperation to get a move on, and enough fondness for his friend to overlook any hostility. His eyes stay rooted ahead, determined not to acknowledge their small audience as Lance turns fully toward the doors, then throws out a “Bye, Keithy!” over his shoulder.

And this time Keith doesn’t have to curse himself for not catching it in time. Because now he can stare beyond the glass doors and windows to where Lance saunters down the sidewalk, the sunlight casting onto the boy’s skin and giving it that warm glow Keith was sure of all along.

  
  


Contrary to what most people assume, Keith doesn’t mind parties. They’re… alright. Tolerable at least, a time well spent at most. But it’s nothing to write home about, and usually the latter experience is because Lance did something stupid and Keith found it way too amusing to bear, or vice versa.

So parties aren’t something he dreads too much, but the _crash_ is what flips his night over like a stale, burnt pancake that spent too much time cooking. Cooking as in socializing, “ _mingling”_ (cue Lance’s waggly fingers); his enthusiasm is as bland as raw pancake batter that turns to a golden crisp when his energy isn’t run dry after a prolonged time.

Allura though, she’s… definitely one for the books. Keith can’t quite put his finger on it, but she’s some strange cross between a princess and a party girl. The way she downs shots with a swift tilt, chatters to guests while maintaining an air of class, then somehow holds off her intoxication until reaching the dance floor— it’s just a mix. God made a woman with the spirit of royalty and somehow went _“oops”_ and poured just as much _wild_ from the pitcher as he did _sophisticated_. Keith will be entirely convinced she’s sober after his sluggish greeting mid-party, then get whiplash from seeing her try to crowd surf over the clustered guests in her giant ass living room only ten minutes later. Must be a rich people thing.

Keith only really nurses a drink for the sake of blending in. If he can pass as at least some level of tipsy then he’ll be left alone and won’t get a _“Get out here and have fun!”_ lecture from his friends. So he lingers in the kitchen with his second solo cup of whatever fruity mix Hunk made over an hour ago while letting his world fall fuzzy under colored lights and thrumming music. His party pancake is heating past that ideal golden brown and rearing on some crispy edges, too shrivaly for comfort.

His peak was half an hour ago, _just_ the right tempo and loose limbs and a bleary enough sense of the pulsing party to tug Lance by the belt loops into something dangerously close to a lap dance from where he sat on a vacant loveseat in the corner, just behind a cluster of chattering girls from their old high school’s cheer team. He couldn’t bother slinging onto their gossip that anyone else would’ve bothered eavesdropping for. By now, he’s less _“Loner Keith”_ and more _“Dead-like-every-other-college-kid Keith”._ Looks like he got a head start in high school and it took everyone else a couple more years to realize how ass the world can be.

To be fair, he already wasn’t too keen on tagging along with the shot games or beer pong or whatever whipped cream challenge Allura and Romelle were up to in the dining room. Lance had been running late and he was _sulking_ before, at least according to Adam he was. And Shiro piped up about _“stray puppy Keith without his crush around”_ all while wobbling in place like one of those top spinner toys moments before they knock over, (Adam saved him from that last part).

But Lance eventually arrived during Keith’s sulk session, carrying that fruity drink that he holds presently in the kitchen, with a cheshire smile and an outfit that could’ve added ten years to Keith’s lifespan if his days living could be bought with gay attacks— or uh, heart attacks.

The first thing his eyes caught onto were black jeans, as slim as his own (aka a tad away from being sealed to the skin), just past the edge of his phone screen that he’d been staring at for no particular reason, his phone wasn’t even unlocked. The first coherent thought that had crossed his mind for the first time in the past hour was _Lord have mercy_. Perhaps he was drunker than he’d thought considering it took that recognizable string of chiming laughter from above to realize those legs belonged to Lance of all people. He couldn’t decide whether he was lucky for seeing this, or unlucky for how forcefully struck dumb he’d been.

Because Lance was just… _damn_.

He had those tight, dark jeans on with this blue t-shirt blouse thing (cut him some slack he’s an idiot when it comes to clothes), a couple buttons left undone leaving a slice of his chest left bare and vibrant from those blinking lights. _Red, blue, purple, yellow, green_ — the first three looked the best on him. They made the jewelry around his neck and along his ears look dark and rich, much less in the classy Altea household way and more in the _“I can get this shit because everyone is wrapped around my pretty little finger”_ way. Keith can’t even argue, if he could afford gold chains over off brand Ramen then his money would be used for the good cause of seeing them hang around Lance’s neck and over the jut of his collarbones. He wonders if a wet kiss would turn the metal cold, make Lance shiver and somehow pavlov that shit into a personified memory of Keith.

And when Lance leaned over with a firm hand on Keith’s knee, bordering plain modesty, he could see coats of glittery blue eye shadow draped over dark, reflective irises. _Red, blue, purple_ — they’re all his color.

“Come dance with me,” Lance said, his curly hair brushing along Keith’s bangs just like they did over the counter at Jamba.

Keith had put a hand over Lance’s and shut off his phone. “I don’t feel like dancing,” he replied. _I feel like kissing you._

“You don’t wanna dance with me?” Lance asked as he leaned closer, the droop of his unbuttoned shirt leaving his whole torso on display past a curtain of necklaces. “I came too late huh? You’re already tired.”

Keith glanced back up to those glitter-rimmed eyes and hooked a finger around one of the belt loops on Lance’s jeans. He only hums, tugging slightly for a hint.

“I’ll sit here if you dance with me later okay?” Lance said as he made his way into straddling Keith’s lap.

He’s not sure what’s come over him during these past couple of months, but Lance being his own handsome self has sparked some flare of protectivity— _possessiveness_ , like the sight of his good looking friend makes him want everyone else to know Lance is _his_ friend. Don’t think it’ll come so easily to them, this boy’s company is something earned. It seeped into the glare he threw around the crowd when his arms wrapped around Lance’s middle and curled him in close. _Mine._

“Aww someone missed me huh?”

Keith rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Lance pulls back, stamping a peck on Keith’s cheek along the way. It isn’t the first time he’s done it, Lance is already affectionate with most friends, but the way his skin bloomed dark across his freckled cheeks is something Keith still ponders about while he wallows here in the kitchen, without Lance. Because one moment he’d been thinking _I’m never gonna touch my face again_ , the next he spotted Ryan, his ex, over Lance’s shoulder.

Seeing Ryan leaves no taste of bitterness in his mouth honestly, just downright blandness at the memory of a relationship that neither of them truly paid time to in the first place. So hearing the man’s deep rumbling voice after a few more steps toward Keith and Lance, asking for some help with his motorbike out front, it was only something to take at face value.

And so Lance slid back to standing after a purposeful stroke along Keith’s arm, leaving the skin underneath the sleeve of his Henley buzzing. Keith’s hand lingered at his friend’s back when Ryan daps them up, then: _“Hey man, good to see you”_ followed by Ryan’s wordless and accepting grunt.

“Sorry,” Keith murmured, but Lance easily shook away the guilt, saying something about needing to drop Allura’s gift off at the table anyway.

So here Keith is, cradling what used to be _Lance’s_ drink left on the small table beside that loveseat, which was vacant after his return from that short fix to Ryan’s bike. His heart had deflated, but Lance was around here somewhere.

 _“Congrats on the boyfriend,”_ Ryan had said out there lamely, but Keith knew there was no dig behind it, that’s just how his ex is.

 _“Not my boyfriend,”_ he had replied before a sigh, crouching down to the small set of tools on the ground.

 _“Looks like he’d wanna be,”_ Ryan had shrugged.

And Keith thinks about it now, with his mouth on the rim of the solo cup, wondering if it’s a fruit punch mix he tastes or the residue of Lance’s lips. It’s wishful thinking, both that and what Ryan had said. But Ryan isn’t a people pleaser, he doesn’t say things for the sake of flattery and that’s how Keith initially understood the man had taken an interest in him at one point.

Maybe it’s his drunken mind drifting back to sobriety, the same way a ball thrown into a pond would float to the surface, that has the possibility of Lance reciprocating, let alone being bisexual, feel so _close_. It’s like an alternate universe where something is just a hair off, like Lance’s eyes being blue and not brown, or Keith standing in this exact spot with a different pair of shoes. Lance as Lance, but he likes boys too. He wonders if it’s worth dreaming of.

Pidge comes into the kitchen, their eyes searching around before catching onto Keith and making their way over.

“You seen Lance anywhere?” they ask, no slurred words or sluggish feet. Pidge isn’t big on drinking, but they find great fulfillment in watching the show unfold when everyone else is intoxicated. Perhaps they’re looking to get another snapchat video of Lance getting nearly mauled by the Altea’s angry housecat Rover. Sounds more like a dog name to Keith, but he keeps that to himself. It’s his only option when he’s preoccupied laughing with Pidge while remaining at least a little concerned.

Keith shakes his head and sets down his cup. He’s done pretending to sip away when he’s only longing for his friend that’s probably lost back in the crowd by now. “No,” he sighs. “Figured he’d eventually find me after talking to everyone, he knows like half the people here.”

“Oh,” Pidge says as they munch on a cracker. Some of the dust puffs out into the air but Keith pays it no mind, he’s already got sauce on his sleeve and is practically sweating himself a whole pool right now. At least his shirt is black…

“Hunk said he looked upset last time he saw him but he doesn’t know where he is now,” Pidge continues after finishing the cracker. “I just need him to send me the playlist link ‘cause Allura wants it.”

 _Lance is upset?_ Keith thinks as his brows furrow. “Oh well then I’ll, uh, I’ll go find him then.” He leans off the counter and makes his way to the hallway around the corner.

“Thanks, Romeo,” Pidge says through another cracker as he walks by.

“Yeah,” he grunts.

Lance has his own rise and crash pattern during parties too, though the slope is far steeper than Keith’s own gradual intolerance. The first couple of hours Lance runs high on excitement for what’s to come during a night out. He’ll nitpick through his crazy amount of Spotify playlists for “the perfect vibe” (which actually always fits the mood well), hype everyone into shots, holler and whoop during games, then blabber someone’s ear off before shaking out the rest of his energy on the dance floor.

Keith will float in and out of this until his own energy falls low and a couch becomes his equivalent to a place in heaven. And without fail, after multiple last attempts to drag him along with more activities, Lance will flop next to him like a puppet’s strings have suddenly been chopped. He crashes from the flick of a switch, a sudden line struck between elation and exhaustion. Lately, Keith’s no longer surprised to wake up with Lance’s head on his shoulder, whether it’s during a quiet car ride home or the end of movie night at the Holt’s.

So with every common room checked, between scattered groups of people ranging from old high school classmates to new sorority girls that veer in too close for comfort, Keith finds himself growing more and more concerned. This is Lance’s _element_ ; surely he should be amongst the laughter and mingling with his trademark beaming smile and ridiculous party tricks, (he’s double jointed, Keith tells him it doesn’t compare to the card magic).

But he’s not there, and Keith feels his heart quiver and sink the farther he treads down the hallway on the second floor, where dim light glows through the crack beneath the bathroom door and illuminates a small patch of the otherwise dark and carpeted floor. He hears the faucet running on the other side, a couple splashes, then a small _thunk_ when it’s shut off.

And then sniffling. The kind that comes in quiet hiccups when the downpour of a breakdown turns weak and all that’s left are the last few raindrops. Keith feels awful because he’s heard it before, and he knows who’s on the other side.

“Lance…?” he says timidly once he opens the door a crack, luckily it’d been unlocked.

Lance straightens from where he stands in front of the counter, a deer caught in the headlights. His hair is tousled and the ends of his front curls hang wet and dripping. The glittery eyeshadow is smeared aside into stubborn, faint blue streaks that turn black along the edges from what Keith presumes to be mascara. His neck is void of necklaces and the collar of his shirt hangs damp and sad, like Lance’s head ducked down in something terribly close to shame and insecurity. It shows in the uneasy way his frame curls in as his arms huddle close.

Keith feels a rattling breath punch out of him as he steps inside the bathroom and carefully shuts the door. “Lance, what happened?” he asks. “A-Are you—“ _He’s not okay._ “What’s going on?”

Honestly if he’d known walking off with Ryan would lead Lance into a fallout like this then he would’ve told the guy to kindly fuck off because… _fuck_. Seeing Lance insecure and upset makes Keith wince like the sight is as terrible as a kicked puppy. Who the fuck does he need to kill now?

Lance turns his head slightly when Keith reaches out to him and places both hands on either tense shoulder. His lashes are dark and stringy, and Keith watches as a bead of water slips from the corner of his eye and slides down the slope of his curved nose, silently dropping to the tile between them. He sniffs. The strayed gaze from those puffy eyes quiver for a moment before they blink shut and another tear falls to the floor.

“‘t’s nothing,” Lance murmurs meekly. His voice flows with the reverence, as if they stand between the aisles of a library and not a secluded bathroom, vacant of people to scold them for risking the volume.

Keith breathes deeply and lifts a hand to wipe away the wet streak down one side of Lance’s face. He gets glitter on his thumb. “It’s not nothing,” he responds carefully. One of the necklace chains peek from the opening of Lance’s pants pocket. “Why’d you take them off?” He hooks his glittery thumb around the thin silver chain. “Were you washing off the makeup too?”

Lance’s fingers twitch and he chances a look at Keith before looking away again. “I figured it was too… much,” he settles.

But Keith knows these aren’t Lance’s words being spoken. Because when he saunters into a setting with confidence, the energy will remain through and through until the next day arrives, eagerly awaiting another burst of pride. Lance carries himself the way he sees fit, and the only time Keith catches that pride crumble is when it’s under the weight of another’s judgement. He’s seen Lance give up on smiling with his teeth for so long in high school because someone had pointed out how “awkward” his braces looked. He’s seen Lance abandon his olive green comfort jacket because it was deemed “ratty”. He’s seen his hands cover wide, round ears before Lance learned the wonders of concealment by jewelry. The criticism is typically not his own doing, but the aftermath of it is.

“Look at me, Lance,” Keith insists and tries for a gentle tilt to the other's chin. “It’s _not_ too much. I don’t know who the fuck said that but you look fucking amazing with it on,” he says, though it takes extra effort when there’s a pair of red rimmed, brown eyes staring thoughtfully into his own.

And although it’s not the best of sights, to see Lance’s mood take a 180 from his initial excitement to raw and distressed, Keith can’t look away. Lance takes beauty to new heights and with that, pain to new lows. Because Keith knows the personality behind his friend’s handsome face, and that’s what makes this all the more heartbreaking.

“I-I mean I would’ve worn eyeshadow too but I don’t have any,” Keith stammers. He’d look good in eyeshadow, right?

For a fleeting couple of seconds, Lance does nothing. He holds still as his gleaming eyes stare on and his lips are pursed in a moment of uncertainty. Keith wonders if that was the right thing to say, or if he’s just being an idiot again.

And suddenly, Lance’s burrows furrow into a peak and his sputtering laughter rocks his body and the hands Keith has on him. His smile is back, and Keith feels he’s got the first puzzle piece clicked into place.

“I hate you,” Lance says lightly as his arms uncross to wrap around Keith’s middle. His head defeatedly falls into the crook of Keith’s neck, leaving wet (and probably glittery) tracks there in a sad contrast to those wet pavlov kisses Keith had pondered over earlier.

Keith holds him just as close, looking into the mirror and seeing the way his hands fight the urge to clutch the fabric of Lance’s shirt. _We’d look so good together_ , Keith can’t help but think pathetically with his chin hooked over the other’s shoulder. He watched his own hand card up the back of Lance’s head and into a cluster of curls, all the while wondering how fucked he’d be for just carrying through with a kiss against the path of warm brown skin over a damp blue collar. “Love you too, Lance.”

The delivery of it is soft. So soft it’s like he plucked his tone from cotton candy and let the reassurement dissolve in a sweet drink. It’s not like he’s suddenly got his heart on his sleeve, to be fair he’s left part of this soft spot exposed for some time now. He can try covering his flames of infatuation but there’s no way around concealing their smoke.

So it’s not much of a surprise when Lance leans back and looks at him with something new, something that toes the line of _this_ and _that_ when it comes to oblivion and plain clarity. It may seem blank but Keith knows there’s gears whirring through those subtle hints Keith has clumsily dropped along the way.

But where he waits for the moment to fall away, Lance licks his lips. Where he expects rejection, those brown eyes glance downward. Where Keith was starting to get comfortable in something unrequited, Lance leans in. Close enough for their noses to brush and Keith _can’t move_ because moving means somehow messing up, something as delicate as a bubble on the brink of popping, or a tower of cards being a breath away from fluttering to the ground. The arms around his waist wrap more securely, and Keith can only _stare_ , his hands frozen in their places on Lance's back and in the confines of his curly hair. He stares through his own borderline epiphany between _this_ and _that_ because Lance’s eyes are not meeting his own. They’re hanging low.

 _“Lance?”_ Allura’s voice calls out beyond the door, and footsteps thump closer from down the hallway.

 _Fuck_ , Keith can only think as Lance startles back and their delicate bubble ends up being popped anyway. There’s no time to afford being awkward over this, because they can only step apart before the door handle twists and a sliver of white hair slips past the open crack before the whole of Allura’s concerned face is revealed.

“Lance do you—“ Allura begins before her eyes widen and then the question is choked back from a gasp. “What _happened?_ ” she says as she makes her way into the bathroom, sparkly heels clicking along the tile until she’s close enough to turn Lance’s blushing face to her.

Lance glances Keith’s way while he stammers through an explanation. Something about _“Just having a bit of a rough day”_ and _“It’s nothing, honestly”_ followed by a chuckle here and there while Allura takes to wiping a cotton pad over each of Lance’s eyes.

She fusses over him. Mirrors Keith’s previous replies of _“It’s not nothing”_ while Lance sits hunched on the counter as his tears and makeup are wiped clean, like a kid getting bandaged for a scrape.

Keith wonders why someone would bag on Lance of all people. He wonders why they can’t just see past that initial frustration from the boy’s rowdiness and see a pure spirit there. He wonders while Allura finishes her ministrations, while Pidge pops in for the playlist, and Ryan needs him for the motorbike _again_. All through the night he wonders— as he watches Lance contently munch away at a cracker, dust puffing past his lips from laughter at Romelle and Allura’s shenanigans, with his bare, glowing face sporting a radiant (albeit crumbly) smile— just _why_.

And when the night ends with him flopping back onto his bed, alone in his apartment because it’s just _him_ now, he figures his lovestruck ass just wouldn’t know.

**Pidge**

Today 2:13 AM

< did lance tell u what happened 

< like why he was upset

Not really. Just said he thought his makeup and stuff was “too much” or something. >

< yea romelle told me what happened,,

? >

< jenny yk the girl who has a thing for lance,,

< she kept saying some shit like “damn you really went all out and it’s not even ur birthday haha” and talking abt how he’s like stealing the spotlight or smth idk it was honestly just fucking dumb tbh

Why would she say that if she’s into Lance? >

< lmfao i think she’s accepted defeat

…? >

< wasn’t lance literally in your lap or smth 🗿

I don’t think that’s something to be concerned about >

< keith i’m p sure anyone with even a singular eyeball could see lance is more into you than p much anyone else

< and don’t give me that “he’s straight” shit cause there was way too many am i gay quizzes in his search history last year

Whatever… >

< you’re dense smh

< i hope he’s ok doh

< his grandparents r living w him & his family now n he said he wants to move out but can’t afford it on his own

< i’m just exposing him now 🗿

Lance wants to move out? >

< wait

< ohohooo don’t you need a roommate?? 👀

… >

We’ll see. >

< alright romeo

< do it like the uhaul lesbians

  
  


Lance moves in with Keith in two weeks.

It didn’t take much convincing for himself, considering the entire time leading up to the offer, he figured it was much easier than learning about a whole other person. And the way Lance’s face lit up when the idea was first brought up at the McClains is a face Keith just can't get sick of seeing. Rosa nearly cried with delight, kissed his cheeks several times before murmuring something about how insufferable the house has been getting. He had to choke back a laugh at that while Lance was heating up leftovers in the microwave, none the wiser to his mother’s exasperation.

So he endures the “Uhaul lesbians” and “newlyweds” and “and they were roommates” jokes while loading Lance’s endless supply of junk into the apartment. _(“Is this a McDonald’s toy?” “I got that from my crush in third grade leave me alone.”)_

He figures the process could’ve been bumpier, Lance could’ve fussed more about how Keith apparently slides the shower curtain to the wrong side of the rod, or that _“shoes shouldn’t be worn around the house”_ before some Spanish babbling, probably calling Keith an animal or something, he doesn’t pay it much mind.

It’s as smooth as it comes when he’s dealing with Lance, so the bickering was expected, the McDonald’s toy a little less so but it’s fitting anyway. They get drunk off cheap wine their first night in together, Lance tries teaching him tiktok dances but they get carried away with something a little slower, and Keith figures this is him making up for that passed up dance at Allura’s party.

He sees more sides of Lance, the ones he dreamed of for far longer than necessary. The ones where Lance is still wallowing at the mercy of sleepiness in the morning and his baggy eyes and ruffled hair aren’t something that Keith has to spend the night at another house to see. The side of Lance that rides through random bursts of energy and has him spontaneously organizing the fridge at 2am with Britney Spears blaring in his earphones, loud enough for Keith to hear from the hallway when he comes out for a late snack. The side of Lance with dewy hair and a fresh face from a shower, or the Lance that can’t bother for showy outfits and instead lounges around in _those_ sweatpants. Or both of those at the same time, which leaves Keith feeling like he’s got the eyes of a virgin _(definitely not)_ if it’s become _that_ big of a deal by now.

He wonders if Lance has caught onto the same thing from his own perspective. If Lance notices new sides to Keith— surely he _has_ , but are they worth taking note of? The most he’s gotten is endless ridicule over the _one_ time he’d fallen asleep on the couch with that “cute kittens compilation” video playing on his phone. Lance accompanies him with the kitten videos now anyway, so he’s past the flustered embarrassment and on to something far more tame, flushed at the little whimpers Lance gives at their weak little meows. Keith talked about adopting one, or at least checking out the shelter downtown. One would’ve thought Lance won the lottery going by his reaction. Now nearly all their text messages are kitten pictures, and then something like _“can you get me toilet paper/ — /no fuck off”_. Good times.

And when they’re not spending time arguing over the best cereal or wrestling until a broken bone is narrowly avoided or visiting the shelter and concluding that the kittens are far more behaved than Rover, Lance still comes slinking into his bedroom looking for something to ease his boredom. Boredom for Lance, free time for Keith. It’s beyond him why Lance can’t seem to function without a task to keep himself occupied.

This time it’s mid smoke. Keith’s got a puff stirring up in his chest while he lays back and fiddles with the wax pen. There’s music playing from his speakers, no particular genre in question since it’s from one of Lance’s picky “vibe” playlists titled _“weewoo”_. He’s not sure Lance knows what an adjective is by now.

“Hey there, mister weed man,” Lance says smugly as he makes his way over to the bed. Keith knows his friend is bored because the visit isn’t taking any direction, if Lance has a plan it’ll be the first thing he spews out. He’s past questioning the absurdities, now _“Wanna make a cake with me?”_ at midnight is his version of normal. He’s hungry around that time anyway, and a Lance with a frosting mustache is another Lance worth seeing.

Keith blows the smoke out through puckered lips. It wafts through the air, obscuring his roommate’s cheshire smile like a crescent moon past wispy clouds. His brows jump, a silent _“hey”_ while Lance makes his way over to where Keith’s hand loosely holds out the pen. He doesn’t remember consciously offering, but it looks like his body is one step ahead.

Lance plucks up the pen, holding the cart between his pinched lips and taking a drag while his warm eyes stare in Keith’s. There’s no direction, just smoke and the music.

_“But I’m not around_

_to see my baby”_

Lance leans forward and blows into his face. Not in the hot, sensual way, but more obnoxious and uncoordinated. Keith’s bangs fly up and his nose scrunches from the faint smell before weakly dragging Lance down onto the bed next to him.

“Ass,” Keith mumbles.

“I do have a nice one, don’t I?” Lance says slyly. Keith gives it a swat before snatching the pen away. _Well it sure is there…_

The whole _this_ and _that_ didn’t change much between them since the party. Keith has come to begrudgingly accept that Lance would’ve ended up kissing him had Allura not called out a second too early. It’s complicated. While Keith wanted to believe it sparked from genuine interest, perhaps he was just some knight in shining armor that night and it could’ve been anyone else.

His alternate universe came true though, or _has been_ true; Lance is bisexual and Keith was made aware of that after a being subjected to a sudden passionate lecture about Liam Hemsworth’s muscles and the things his roommate would do to get his hands on them. _“He has me in a chokehold, Keith,”_ Lance had slurred that first night they went ham with the wine. _“I’m… my bi heart…”_ And then he collapsed over the back of the couch. Strike one of those many near broken bone incidents. 

They moved forward with grace. Lance’s little coming out moment left unspoken of save for _“I should’ve told you sooner”_ the following morning, and Keith’s response of _“Everyone does it in their own time”_ with a nonchalant shrug, despite his heart bustling around in his chest like it was Nemo being shaken around in a plastic bag by the dentist’s daughter. (Yes they watched that movie the previous night, it’s the only other thing he could think about.) 

So he’d like to think it means something. That Lance really is as into him as a one eyeballed person would think, according to Pidge. He’s caught Lance’s fleeting glances on the still-warm autumn nights where he abandons a shirt. He’s felt Lance’s leg slowly sling over him as they watched the kitten videos. He’s picked up that miffed tone when Lance said _“He’s probably into you or something”_ about the fucking Mcdonald’s drive thru worker that was honestly just being decent and doing his job. God if he didn’t enjoy that though. 

Perhaps he’s planning to get a move on. _Perhaps_. There’s really no right way to go around it, and a confession or a kiss isn’t something to schedule. _July 22nd, 10:24pm: makeout with roommate… or something_. Note taken. The weed has subsided his nervousness at least.

Lance slides a hand over his chest and _that_ , that is what Keith is talking about. It’s something. He can’t help smirking when he looks Lance’s way.

_“See my baby,_

_see my baby”_

“You gonna show me a magic trick?” Lance asks while Keith takes a drag. He rolls his eyes. “What? I’m bored, man.”

Keith likes how close they are, all fuzzy and warm even over the covers. He likes getting Lance’s full attention and being nagged to no end because it’s not just from boredom now.

He sets down the wax pen, staving off an exhale while his thumb comes up to Lance’s mouth before giving a wordless nod.

“That’s not a magic trick that’s shotgunning,” Lance says, though he looks apprehensive nonetheless.

Keith gives him a flat stare. _Are you in it or no?_ he sends with it. Lance glances down to Keith’s mouth, his own pretty lips already hanging agape with uncertainty before he looks back up and nods.

His thumb doesn’t have to be there, but it lingers along the swell of Lance’s bottom lip until it’s replaced by Keith’s own. The pressure is gentle, the same careful touch one would use when examining an injury, because they’ve formed another bubble that can’t afford bursting into nothing again, just like that time in the bathroom.

He lets the smoke crawl from his lips in a slow pant. It’s wet, makes their lips slide just _barely_ while Lance faithfully inhales like he’s spellbound. The heat lingers, his thumb moves to the other’s pointed chin, and Keith can only wonder why the _fuck_ hasn’t he done this before?

Because Lance is right _here_ , taking what Keith gives in a gentle breath while his fingers curl into Keith’s shirt and his eyelids flutter until those gleaming brown eyes can’t stand staring anymore. Like it’s too much for Lance, or he doesn’t want to see a moment when he can feel it all instead.

And after the last of the cloud moves between them in a feathered wisp, Keith decides he too can’t stand staring anymore.

Where one moment their shotgun was the ghost of a kiss, the next Keith is bringing it to life and dragging it in by the heart. He swoops forward, lightly takes Lance’s plush lip between his teeth before tugging it into his mouth. There’s no hesitance as he takes, just his shirt getting tugged even closer as they pant under a blanket of the easy, rhythmic music, and Lance licks into his mouth like he’d been planning this all along.

 _Fuck I’m an idiot_ , Keith thinks as he reels himself in over and over again, until their kiss turns to several and it’s far longer than the shotgun had been. There’s no smoke left, just the burning aftermath in his chest from holding it in for long, and his brain melting from something so overdue.

He kisses until his lips feel as tingly and numb as his limbs, and even longer than that. Lance is adamant with his grip on the shirt, wouldn't relent until Keith found himself crawling onto him and threw extra effort into mashing their mouths when he’s on the brink of being high as shit.

Lance whines, his fingers taking hold of the hair at Keith’s nape when the latter is thrown off center and lip to lip turns to lip to neck. There’s metal there, thin and delicate along Lance skin and Keith only has time to notice when his tongue roves over a surface that isn’t warm and smooth. He feels his shirt bunch at the lower back when he bites, and the following sound from Lance is something that Keith feels he could get high off or even without the weed.

 _“Keith,”_ Lance breathes out, his grip on Keith’s nape turns solid and secure, tugs the hair a little and the mouth on his neck unlatches, letting a hot pant hit the tender skin there before a calmer kiss.

Keith feels like his brain is just catching up to his body, or vice versa, and when he leans low for Lance’s lips again. It’s like following a script and nothing feels new until he registers it again moments later.

When his autopilot finally dwindles to a stop, he pauses, decides the drink in the sight of Lance dark and flushed underneath him with a patch of red above the collar of his tank top and beneath those chains Keith only noticed a few seconds ago— has it been only a few seconds? Minutes? The song seems to have changed… 

“That…” Lance starts, still catching his breath as he stares up at Keith with bewilderment even though this exchange was a two way street. “...is still not a magic trick.” He grins.

Keith’s brows furrow. Magic trick..? Oh.

“You’re insufferable.” He rolls his eyes and hobbles off of Lance, back onto the bed.

“Insufferable enough to kiss?” Lance asks smugly. He slides a hand back over Keith’s chest. “To date? To… ah, looks like we’re already living together…” he trails, then his eyes light up. “To adopt a kitten together?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” Keith says with a reluctant smile.

“With which part?”

Lance waits as he lays there, curled on his side while keeping that hand on Keith without pressure. He’s serious this time, doubting himself.

And by now Keith has run through the thick of that sickenly sweet feeling in love songs, too many times to count. He’s hopelessly infatuated with Lance, has stared at him longer than he would a movie marathon, and realized that it’s not only the brown eyes or curly hair or ridiculous tattoos or freckled shoulders and big round ears that keep him holding out for a long run. Lance’s physical attraction reels him in, but the way that Keith’s been deemed as a home to this boy and treated as such, trusted to the ends of the earth far beyond what he thought he was capable of, it’s cemented now. Lance is insufferable enough to love.

So when Keith says “I wanna date you”, gives Lance a few more kisses just to send away the lingering doubt he sees in Lance’s face, then finishes with “We’ll see what comes next”, he means it.

“Sounds good to me,” Lance murmurs, then gives back as many smooches as he got and hums in content.

Keith cuddles close, yeah, _cuddles_ , cause he’s mister claimed puppy now (thank you very much, Shiro). He lounges with Lance under their next few puffs of smoke, shotguns that turn into sloppy slow makeouts, and Lance’s not so sly pinches to his bottom.

“Here’s your magic trick,” he says a while later, holding out one of the chains that hung around his friend— _boyfriend’s_ long neck moments before.

Lance gapes incredulously and snatches it back. “Ass,” he says, then gives Keith a peck. Must be a new reward system now.

“Well I do have a nice one, don't I?”

And when Keith is already freely following through with the instinct to kiss a scowl off that cute face, he figures it’s a better time than ever to realize that when it comes to Lance now, he can do more than just stare.

**Author's Note:**

> exclusive fics on [my instagram](https://instagram.com/arcadevia?igshid=1bqu2rmbht9gq)
> 
> The song playing on Lance’s “weewoo” playlist is Not Around by Nova
> 
> I didn’t get to finish this in time to post on my birthday yesterday but leave a kudos & comment as a late gift...? ❤️


End file.
